Henry O. Head
Henry O. Head is a Photographer based in Arkansas.
What do you enjoy most about your process of making images?
For a long time I tried to make photographs with a preconceived idea in mind of how I wanted the shot to look. However, throughout my journey with photography, I’ve learned that the real magic is to be found when you approach your subject with a radical openness instead so that new and unexpected things can occur. This approach makes the process feel more like a treasure hunt, which has made the creative process feel a lot more alive in a sense.
What are you trying to say through your imagery? Or what kind of feelings do you hope your work evokes?
I try and treat the photograph as a container for what the moment feels like to me. At this point, if I am not moved by the subject, I won’t take the photograph. Only when something about the subject calls out do I take the photograph, because I assume if I don’t feel a connection to the subject then neither will the viewer. To me, a photograph is only successful if it illuminates something within the viewers interior world.
How does being a photographer influence how you go about your day to day life?
It may sound cheesy but photography has become a form of meditation for me. The mundane is now filled with possibilities, walks around new cities teem with details and ironies I never noticed prior to this craft, a persons hands/hair/freckles all stand out to me in a new way.
Where is one place that your lens has taken you that you otherwise might not have gone without a camera in your hand?
Getting to go on a cross-country tour with talented musician and good friend, Ethan Healy, as the tour photographer was a great time. Getting to shoot the shows, document days off at the beach, capture nights at dive bars, etc., was all such a good time.
